Have noms, will travel...
I may never cook again. That, of course, is a bold-faced lie; I enjoy cooking too much to give it up. Eating out is something I usually save for those dishes I cannot prepare readily at home, such as sushi or LJS* as paying someone else for something I can make better is an anathema to me. Then we found the trucks.
Food trucks are not new to the various large cities of our nation's wang, but in the past couple of years they have become something more than purveyors of over-priced hot dogs and boiled peanuts both here and other parts of the country. Tales have been spun of epicurean delights to be had from these wheeled kitchens, some even appropriate for a vegetarian such as myself. K. and I had a new mission: to see what all the hoopla was about. It took us three weeks.
Food trucks, as the name implies, move around a lot. On any given day there are trucks scattered all over the county in singles and small multiples. We are lucky enough to have a few good sites for tracking current and future locations of the various carriages of consumption in our area but timing is not always on our side. We wanted to catch one of the larger gatherings so as to maximize our options since we did not know the specifics of each truck. We may have over-thought that a bit. Impromptu plumbing repairs and K.'s work schedule kept throwing off our schedule. Yesterday we finally made it to one of the monthly round-ups and lack of tempting options was not a problem.
The gathering was held behind a local mall, in the parking lot of some obscure local college and hosted at least a dozen different trucks. We started with an order of fries smothered in a truffle oil mushroom sauce. I do not recall poutine ever being as good and this was vegetarian to boot. K. had a Luther burger a la The Boondocks just because'. (Anyone unfamiliar with a Luther needs to skip Google and go straight to watching all episodes of The Boondocks.) He said it was fantastic and I will take his word for it since dead cow and pig are not my thing. I decided to go small so as to be able to sample more this time out. I never made it past my "french onion" grilled cheese. The most brilliantly caramelized onions smothering swiss and fontina cheeses on a perfectly toasted, locally baked brioche. K. or I could probably recreate the same thing but matching the perfect hint-of-char on the brioche would take practice. My fantasy of moving on to some escargot and a homemade, HFC's-free whoopie pie after did not survive the delicious but filling sandwhich. K. had room for some creme brulee and the bite I snitched was light and wonderful.
Anyone lucky enough to live in a part of the country where the food truck craze has caught on should really check out their local fare. There is a lot of emphasis on comfort foods as well as locally grown/produced foodstuffs and even the most restrictive diets seemed to have options.
-m
*Long John Silvers is my fast-food treat. I cannot duplicate their batter and am more than happy to visit our only remaining solo LJS (the combination stores are made of fail) every couple of months for my fix.
